UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
My perimeter checks were useful, but it was Tucker’s knowledge of medical-speak that got us out of the hospital.
I knew I’d never be able to repay him for sneaking me out. And I’d never really be able to thank him for being worried about me when he found out Miles and I were together, instead of being angry.
We sprinted across the rain-soaked parking lot to Tucker’s black SUV and peeled our way out to the street. He didn’t ask me what I thought was going on. They used to be best friends. He probably already knew.
I couldn’t see Hannibal’s Rest because of the dark sheeting rain, but I knew when we passed my street because the phoenix sat atop the stop sign, its feathers flaming red in the rain. We swerved through the Lakeview Trail entrance. Tucker pulled up in front of Miles’s house. I spotted Miles’s truck in the driveway, but not the Mustang that had been there before.
“We have to get inside.” I jumped out of the SUV.
“What?”
“We’re going into the house! Come on.”
Together we climbed the fence into the front yard. I desperately hoped Ohio wasn’t out, or couldn’t hear or smell us in this rain. The monster dog would tear us both to pieces. The front door of the house was shut tight and all the first floor lights were off, but a light was on upstairs.
I pulled Tucker to the doghouse, freezing when I saw the hulking silhouette of the huge Rottweiler, apparently asleep. But there was something unnatural about Ohio’s stillness.
Chills ran up my arms. This was it; this was the night. I climbed up on the doghouse and reached for the drainpipe, like I’d seen Miles do when he’d left the house that night. It had been reinforced with pieces of wood that stuck out at odd angles and made perfect hand- and footholds. Miles must have put them there. The trick to climbing them was not combusting from the fiery soreness burning through my entire body.
Within minutes, both Tucker and I were on the rain-slicked porch roof and making our way to the room with the light.
The window was open enough for me to wedge my fingers underneath and pull it up. Tucker and I tumbled inside.
I started out noticing the little things: the notebooks spilling from the closet; the hunk of Berlin Wall sitting on the dresser, crumbling on one side like part had been broken off; the words scribbled on the walls. A picture frame sat on his nightstand. The black-and-white picture was of a man who looked almost exactly like Miles, one eyebrow quirked up, wearing a black flight jacket and standing next to a WWII-era fighter plane.
“He’s not here,” I said. “We have to search the rest of the house.”
“What about Cleveland?” Tucker asked.
“I think he’s gone. His car is gone.”
Tucker didn’t look so sure.
“Come on.” I walked to the door and wrenched it open. A stale smell hit me straight in the face, and I realized how much Miles’s room had smelled like him, like mint soap and pastries.
Tucker followed me out into a narrow hallway lined with doors, all open. The rain and wind howled outside. This place was so cold, so sad, I wondered how Miles managed to live here at all. Tucker walked toward the opposite end of the hallway, where a staircase descended to the first floor. A single lightbulb over the stairs cast a halo on his black hair.
He sucked in a breath. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“Oh shit, Alex, oh shit.” He started down the stairs, two at a time. I ran to the top of the stairs and looked down.
Miles sat against the wall at the bottom, slouched over.
One second I was at the top of the stairs and the next I was at the bottom. Tucker was already at his cellphone, speaking to a 911 operator. I knelt next to Miles, wanting to touch him but afraid of what I’d feel. Blood dripped slowly onto his glasses; the extra weight pulled them down until they hung off one ear.
Would he be cold? As dead and empty as the house around him?
This could not be happening. I was hallucinating all of this. I could make it all go away if I tried hard enough.
But I couldn’t. And it was real.
I placed a shaky hand over his heart. I couldn’t feel anything. I pressed my ear against his chest, closed my eyes, and prayed, really prayed, for the first time in my life, to whatever god was listening.
Don’t go away. Don’t go away.
Then I heard it. And I felt the almost unnoticeable rise-and-fall motion of his chest as he breathed.
Tucker dragged me back.
“Is he breathing?” I asked. “Is he really breathing?”
“Yeah,” Tucker said, “yeah, he’s breathing.”